(for my father)
I inherited a lighter olive skin,
your love of Ceylon tea and oranges,
the duty of Palestinian sympathies.
Together, we steeped
in your isolation.
Phone calls at 1 am
eight time zones away.
Shouted greetings flew
upstairs like arguments.
I imagined you heard news—
a cousin’s wedding,
grandfather’s illness—
and knew you lied
about my proper progress
as a child of Allah.
Family I had never met
accepted me for your sake,
though my tongue never
trilled r the right way
over talk of war or
ghosts of Babylon.
Until you speak Arabic—
you will not understand pain.
I listened to your words
I could not reach:
perfect apples, the branch too high.
One day,
I will write letters
in the wrong direction
and understand
the words you weep.
Note: Until you speak Arabic—you will not understand pain is from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Arabic.”
Katie Galvin holds an M.A. in poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her poetry has appeared in Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing. Of late, she spends most of her time attempting to convince her students of the magic of all things literary while acclimating to life in rural south-central Missouri.